Mike Bauer

Meet Oliver the Cat

Every day, like so many others, I stop and appreciate one of my best friends, my cat, Oliver. We have been together for a long time; as a matter of fact, my friendship with Oliver is the longest I have ever had with that of another species. When he was 4, he got out of the house, I tried to get him back in but couldn’t, and after I got to work, he tried to kiss the bumper of a car on the highway. The landlord called me at work and said the highway worker saw him drag his two back feet into the woods.

For two days I looked hither and yon, and just as the search mission was turning into a recovery mission, he came out from under one of the old single wide trailers with his lower jaw at a curious right angle to his upper jaw. His tongue was hanging out. Not good. Off to the vet. The local Vet said – Hmmm take him to a specialist in Denver and see if he is interested in putting JigJaw Puzzles together today. I called and he said – sure for lots of money I’ll do it, and of course, money didn’t mean anything, so, off to Denver we went.

He looked at me the whole way, with his jaw that way, and the look on his face as if he was asking me, “Uh, are you going to take me to the dentist, or what?” Two weeks and some bank financing later my little feline work of surgical art came home. Perfect jaw with two pins in it. If you know anything about a cat’s lower jaw, it’s like, made out of four toothpicks glued together. The guy was a…well…a surgeon. Two days later, his jaw sunk down and two the left – but just a little. Just enough to give him some character. Just enough for me to call him, from time to time, “Ol’ Crooked Mouf”. Meet Oliver. He will be 15 in December.